MLB trade deadline generates massive excitement

	Shawn Green is one of the big names rumored to be on the trading block. Doug Pensinger/Getty Images

The baseball season is so long that even die-hard fans can get a little bored in the middle of it. That's why little non-stories like All-Star snubs or Mark Teixeira turning into David Eckstein at the plate can get a lot of press. The weeks leading up to the July 31 trade deadline, though, are always fascinating, as baseball's stars get traded at a seemingly much higher rate than their counterparts in other pro sports. While this high turnover keeps the game interesting, it has the added benefit of generating head-scratching trades.

Even if your team is completely out of it and in fire-sale mode, this is an exciting time to be a fan. Overpaid fading stars routinely get cleared out to make room for top prospects and to purge payroll, so Diamondbacks fans must be salivating at the rumors that the Yankees are interested in acquiring Shawn Green. He'd have to waive his limited no-trade clause, and whoever picks him up will be on the hook for at least $11.5 million of salary through next season. And that's not even counting the expense of buying a time machine to go back to 2002 when Green was still kind of good. However, some team looking for an outfield power bat always bites on this kind of guy, and this year probably will be no exception.

Along the same lines, the Nationals are making Jose Guillen available, if any team feels its chemistry is just too good to win. It's not every season you can get a clubhouse cancer and .210 hitter for a song, so someone will surely jump on him. And apparently the Orioles are offering Rodrigo Lopez to teams in search of pitching. After Lopez's solid showing against the Blue Jays on Sunday, his value will never be higher, particularly in the small subset of GMs with no long-term memory or access to his season stats. Meanwhile, Javy Lopez told the Baltimore Sun that trading him would be a win-win situation, although it's not exactly clear how a team would win by acquiring a defensively mediocre catcher or a powerless DH. Perhaps they're playing Make the Worst Trade.

However, the Reds seem to have locked that game up with last week's enormous deal that sent Austin Kearns and Felipe Lopez to Washington for bullpen help. As others have noted, this trade seemed more than a bit lopsided, as Kearns and Lopez both have huge offensive upside. It's almost as if Nationals GM Jim Bowden originally had Adam Dunn and Junior Griffey included in the deal, too, but then got a guilty conscience about such a heist. This deal represented everything wonderful about the trade season: no Cincy fan would have pulled the trigger on it, it's designed to help a deeply flawed team win now, and it cost a great offensive team two every-day players. Reds GM Wayne Krivsky apparently didn't realize that when the answer involves acquiring Eddie Guardado and Gary Majewski in the same week, you've probably been asking the wrong questions.

Another great staple of the trade season is the team that doesn't realize it can't win, no matter what trade it makes. This GM is usually like that one nerdy kid who asks the hottest girl in school to the prom, only to find out that outside of after-school-special contexts, she's always going to say no. This year's candidate for the position seems to be the Brewers, whose name keeps popping up in trade rumors. The Brew Crew has an extremely talented young core of players and may want to try to win now while they've still got Carlos Lee. Does anyone see them making a deep run in the playoffs with that rotation, though? Chris Capuano and a healthy Ben Sheets could make a killer one-two punch for a short series, but Sheets also has a tendency to get injured by strong breezes. Wouldn't it be better to wait a year, let the young guys develop and then try to make a run, especially in the NL Central, which has more aging stars than a PBS telethon? They might be better off trading Lee if they can't re-sign him and using the salary savings to feed Prince Fielder.

Some crafty team is definitely going to help itself at the deadline this year, although it's too early to tell which one. If the rumors of a potential White Sox acquisition of Jason Schmidt are realized, someone's going to have to investigate whether Sox GM Kenny Williams is using a hypnosis coin from the back of Boys' Life to trick opposing teams into making these deals. Alfonso Soriano, Bobby Abreu and possibly Lee could all make huge outfield additions to a club on the cusp of winning, but they're not going to make a marginal team a real playoff threat. Trading for Soriano won't help the Mariners unless he upgrades their rotation by breaking Jarrod Washburn's arm as soon as he arrives in Seattle. Still, we'll probably see another confusing trade like that in the coming weeks, and with so many good names potentially on the market and so many teams still technically in their races, this could be one of the most memorable trade seasons in years.

Ethan Trex thinks Darko should hold out for that five-year, $80 million extension. Ethan can be reached at ethantrex@gmail.com.

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